- Vladimir Rusanov
Vladimir Alexandrovich Rusanov ( _ru. Владимир Александрович Русанов) (
November 3 (O.S. November 15 ), 1875,Oryol - ?) was an experiencedRussia ngeologist who specialized in theArctic .In 1909-1911 V. A. Rusanov carried out explorations in
Novaya Zemlya . He was helped by Tyko Vylka, his guide, who later became the Chairman of the Novaya ZemlyaSoviet .In 1912 Rusanov had been appointed to command a government expedition to
Svalbard to investigate the coal potential (Pinkhenson 1962 p. 489). He sailed from Aleksandrovsk-na-Murmane (nowPolyarnyy , nearMurmansk ) on 26 June on ship "Gerkules" under CaptainAlexander Kuchin ,Roald Amundsen 's South Pole navigator. The personnel consisted of thirteen men and one woman, Rusanov's French fiancée. Apart from Rusanov there was another geologist and a zoologist.At the end of a very successful summer’s field work, three members of the expedition (the geologist, the zoologist and the ship's bosun) returned to Russia via Grønfjorden in
Norway (Pinkhenson 1962 p. 492). The remaining ten, however, without consultation with the authorities inSt. Petersburg , set off with Rusanov in an incredibly rash attempt at reaching thePacific Ocean via theNorthern Sea Route . Their ship "Gerkules" was too small for the kind of expedition Rusanov had in mind.The last to be heard of Rusanov's expedition was a telegram left at Matochkin Sharon
Novaya Zemlya , which reached St. Petersburg on 27 September 1912. In it, Rusanov indicated that he intended rounding the northern tip of Novaya Zemlya, and heading east across theKara Sea but nothing was heard from the "Gerkules" thereafter. He and his 11-man team, including Alexander Kuchin, disappeared without trace a year later in theKara Sea , off the northern coast of Siberia.In 1914-15 the almost impossible task of searching for Rusanov (as well as for similarly disappeared Captain
Georgy Brusilov from another expedition), was entrusted toOtto Sverdrup with the ship "Eklips". His efforts, however, were unsuccessful.In 1937 the Arctic Institute of the
USSR organized an expedition to theNordenskiöld Archipelago on ship "Toros". Relics of the ill-fated 1912-13 Vladimir Rusanov’s expedition on the "Gercules" were found on Popova-Chukchina Island located at (74° 56'N, 86° 18'E) off Kolosovykh Island in the Kolosovykh group.A glacier in
October Revolution Island , in theSevernaya Zemlya group has been named after Vladimir Rusanov.Rusanov is dutifully remembered in the city of his birth,
Oryol , where street "Ulitsa Rusanova" is named after him. There is also a museum in the house where he spent his childhood and youth at no.43 "Ulitsa Rusanova".Soviet coal mining onSvalbard began in 1932.References
* William Barr, "Otto Sverdrup to the rescue of the Russian Imperial Navy".
* William Barr, "The First Tourist Cruise in the Soviet Arctic".
* http://www.polarmuseum.sp.ru/Win/mdates.htm
* http://www.vova.cz/pgs1_a/ark_trilogie_a.htm
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